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WILDSTAR Cinematic Trailer Is Hilarious - Too Bad It's An MMORPG

When I first watched the below trailer for Carbine Studios/NCSoft’s upcoming space MMO,WILDSTAR, I thought: “This would make a terrific animated movie.”

I mean, as far as cinematic trailers go, while it tells us nothing about the gameplay itself, it really is a beautiful short film. It’s funny, well-animated, well-acted. Everything a movie trailer ought to be, even if, again, it teaches us nothing of the game itself.

After doing a bit of gameplay video-watching I decided that rather than a movie, it’s really a shame this isn’t a single-player adventure – or better still, a co-op game – rather than an MMO.

I simply don’t trust the genre to produce much of anything new or different, unique settings aside. Maybe this time I’ll be wrong…though it’s not like the first time I’ve said that. And while early previews of the game do indicate some fun innovations, I remain deeply skeptical of the entire genre. (Though still fairly hopeful that NCSoft and ArenaNet can make magic out of Guild Wars 2.)

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I’m not entirely sure I get why you say that you’ve lost hope in MMO’s, and then turn around and praise GW2 as being the one game to break the mold.

I’m sure that GW2 will be a good game and from what I’ve seen, it does have *some* innovations/evolutions of the genre, but to me it’s not that much. If you want to talk about gameplay innovations, I would suggest that you look closer at Wildstar. I’ve been following their development for a while, and there are a good number of videos and dev blogs that have been released since that trailer came out – All of them have some new tidbit of interesting information to offer. Off the top of my head, I can mention a few key features that you don’t see in (many) other games:

* Player paths. Choose your playstyle and play the game how you want it, with actual content designed specifically for your path. Paths are class and race independent, and will make up 20%+ of your gaming experience. Current announced paths: Explorer, Soldier, Scientist, Settler. * Player housing that actually matters. More than just fluff, housing will serve as an activity hub, with access to other areas, and amenities that are appropriate to your player path. Also, the trailer for this is hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQm7eOjyQSY * Active combat. GW2 has this as well, but looking at the videos, the combat here is a bit more like Tera’s, albeit more tactical in nature. It looks like a lot of fun, and player skill actually seems to matter here. * Anti-botting measures built into the core gameplay. Harvesting minerals for your crafting? There’s a chance that one of those mineral veins is actually a boss monster, who will pop up and try to kill you. Best it, and you get extra rewards. Bots will not have as easy of a time handling this.

Seriously, go look at some of the videos the Wildstar team has posted, and you might be pleasantly surprised. Personally I’m way more excited about this game than GW2, and I see more innovations and focus on fun here as well.

http://www.reddit.com/r/WildStar is a good place to start. The 4 gameplay videos from Gamescom that were posted show off a lot of the game in it’s current state, although it’s more of a ‘tour’ than an in-depth look at the various systems in the game.